Hollow
by IgirisuK
Summary: It's the end of the world. Izaya Orihara, the most dangerous man in Ikebukuro (at least in his own eyes) has been reduced to a scavenger in the rubble. But it's not until he runs into an old enemy that he realizes how much things have really changed. Rated T for swearing and character death.
1. 1: Lost Violent Souls

_A/N: Hello, everyone, Iggy here. I felt like writing a really depressing fic, so, yeah, that's what this is._

_I don't own Izaya or Shizuo, they belong to Ryohgo Narita. I also do not own "The Waste Land", that belongs to T.S. Eliot. _

The wind sighs through the broken windows of buildings. The sky's the gray-yellow of stormclouds, as it's been for weeks, now. It's oppressive, like a low-hanging ceiling, about to fall on his head.

He doesn't like going outside anymore, though he doesn't have to watch for flung vending machines or a monster brandishing stop signs. He misses those days, now that he thinks about it. They were like a game, a show he put on for the world, even himself. He wishes he could go back; life was simpler then.

He'd hoped that, if there was more life out there, they'd be human on a bigger scale. Just as easy and fun to toy with, opening whole new vistas to his view. Instead, they were more monstrous than Shizu-chan had ever been. They razed the world to eat it and left the shell in their wake. Months after they'd ripped islands from their moorings and sent the ocean running wild, humanity was gone.

He still lived, and so, he thought, did a few others. He couldn't really be sure.

If there were any others in Ikebukuro, he doubted they'd recognize him now.

He'd never been especially large, but his body had grown weak, nigh-skeletal as of late, from lack of food. He doubts he could even jump a few feet, much less vault as he'd used to. His hair hangs lank and greasy, flopping into his eyes when he turns his head. He still wears his coat, of course, he doesn't feel himself without it, but it's grown threadbare, and hangs all too loosely on his stick-figure frame. The light rucksack on his back, filled with whatever necessities he can scrounge from the wreckage, is like the weight of the water on a drowning man's back.

He feels like a maggot in the corpse of a giant.

He thinks he hears footsteps. They're in the same rhythm that Shinra used to walk in, light, but not hesitant. He turns to greet his friend, but there's no one there, of course. It was the crash of stone against stone as rubble settled, nothing more.

Shinra's gone, of course, though he finds it hard to remember. Shinra, Mikado, Kida, Mairu and Kururi, Kadota, Simon, the Dollars, the Yellow Squares, all, all have fallen. Shizuo vanished, and Celty left long before. He's alone, as ever, but...

He feels as though he's surrounded by ghosts. He wonders, if they are there, what they think of him.

Izaya Orihara, the most dangerous man in Ikebukuro, reduced to the status of a rat.

_Those who have crossed_  
_With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom_  
_Remember us—if at all—not as lost_  
_Violent souls, but only_  
_As the hollow men_  
_The stuffed men._


	2. 2: Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams

"I didn't expect to see _you_ here, flea."

He can analyze an expression in mere moments, and tones of voice are like an open book to him. He likes what he sees; when it comes to Shizu-chan, he almost always does. The monster's so easy to read, sometimes. Mostly because there's nothing there but violence.

He senses hostility, of course, but... there's something unexpected there, a note almost of relief. He knows that desperate times change people, of course, but he's used to Shizu-chan being easier to read than a children's picture book.

Then again, it's exactly how he feels as well. Seeing another person, even that goddamn monster, it's so... so...

"It's good to see you too," he says, feeling his face crinkle into that familiar grin. God, he's missed smiling. And humans. He's missed humans, and he didn't even realize how much until just now.

Shizu-chan just snorts, and picks at his nails.

He looks at Shizu and notices all the little details. How the mighty have fallen! His face is ghastly pale; hair, once the color of a streetlight at dusk, now the dark brown of a roach's back. His clothes, so neat in Izaya's memory, are shredded, the white shirt replaced with a black wifebeater. His nails are ragged, bitten to the quick, and a thin trail of blood leaks from his thumb's cuticle. The sunglasses still perch atop his nose, but one lens is shattered, and he can see a gray eye gazing through the gap.

Shizuo's eye...

He'd only caught a few glimpses of Shizuo's eyes before, and he never really had cared before. They're cold, he realizes. A little frightening. He doesn't know what it is about them- they're warm gray, full of life, not clouded. But the intensity of the gaze reminds him of dead fish eyes.

He can't meet his stare now.

"How'd you even find this place?" he asks the monster, clasping his hands behind his back. His fingers knot together like frightened snakes.

Shizu-chan glares at him. He feels like a butterfly stuck on a pin.

"You left a trail." The word _moron_ is clearly implied, but left unsaid.

_He must be in a good mood._

"I thought it was someone else. Of course, the world ends and you're the only person left..." Shizu-chan leans against the wall. The monster's breathing rather hard, he notices, and crusted, brown-red blood has spread over the torso of his shirt.

"Ah. I see." He fidgets restlessly. "You know, this is a good thing?"

"What if they spot us?" There's no explanation needed. 'They' are the ones that destroyed everything.

"It don't matter." His voice sounds far too quiet, even in his own ears. "They've already won."

Shizu-chan stares at him, like he's looking at a ghost, and shakes his head.

"You've gone crazy. Stone-cold crazy."

"Am I wrong?" He tries to stare right back at him. That cold gray gaze is hard to withstand, though, and he glances away after mere moments.

"...The Orihara I knew wouldn't give up so easily." Shizuo sounds like he hates to admit it, like he hates to admit that his worst enemy has any good qualities at all.

"The Orihara you knew doesn't exist any more." His voice is soft, quiet, almost hesitant. He hadn't heard anyone speak for so long. How long has it been, a year now?

Perhaps it's just that his voice is rusty.

_Neither does the Shizuo I remember._

"Well..." Shizu-chan stares at him.

He can tell that the monster isn't looking him in the eye, though; looking up, he realizes Shizu's gaze is fixed on his left ear.

He decides to defuse the situation, as much as he can.

"Want a smoke?" he asks. The packet of cigarettes has been in his pocket for a year, as a peace offering of sorts. He knew that if he ran into Shizu-chan again, he'd want him on his side.

Shizuo's eyes brighten and he snatches for the box. The chemical smell of the lighter fills his nose as he watches Shizu-chan scrabble at the switch. He can feel a smile blooming on his face as he watches the monster grin.

"Is it any good?"

Shizu-chan takes a deep drag, the tip of the cigarette glowing with a faint, red light.

"Mm." It's half a sigh of contentment, half a noncommital grunt. "What do you want out of me,  
flea?"

"To tell you the truth?" He tries to meet his gaze head-on. Easier, since the monster's eyes are closed. He's reminded of the old stories of gorgons whose gaze turns men to stone.

"I'm lonely," he says.

Shizuo's eyebrow raises, and he laughs. It's almost a barking laugh, but Izaya can hear the faint edge of tension beneath it, and it makes him... almost feel pity. He's so used to not feeling anything at all that it seems sharp and raw to him.

"You're human after all. Sometimes I wondered." Shizuo grins, and takes off his sunglasses. The full force of that cast-iron gaze is fixed on him, and he feels a little weak in the knees.

He tries to smile, meeting Shizu-chan's eyes.

"...And you're not a human or a monster. You're a person." It was the highest honor he can accord someone. They are neither a pawn in his games- though that's a joke now, really- nor an enemy he has to destroy. They are an equal to him.

Shizuo laughs again.

"A person, huh? It really is the end of the world." He takes another deep drag, staring at him.  
"You know, flea... maybe you've changed into a person, too. A person I could be friends with."

Under the dead-fish-eye gaze, all he can do is nod.

He's going to have nightmares about Shizu-chan's eyes tonight, he knows he will.

_Eyes I dare not meet in dreams_  
_In death's dream kingdom_  
_These do not appear:_  
_There, the eyes are_  
_Sunlight on a broken column..._


	3. 3: Supplication of a Dead Man's Hand

"We've got to go to the flood zone."

It's been nearly three months since he met Shizu-chan in the ruins he was living in, and he has become pleasantly accustomed to the idea of having a partner in crime.

They make a surprisingly good team, when one of them isn't trying to kill the other. Shizuo's strength and common sense, paired with Izaya's genius intellect, become an almost unstoppable force.

At times, he catches himself wondering why he never thought of this before. Then Shizu will look at him in a particularly annoyed manner, or call him 'flea', and he'll remember that they aren't friends, and will never be.

"Flea, are you even listening?" A clod of rubble flies towards him, and he dodges instinctively. The shreds of the reverie scatter around him.

"What is it, Shizu-chan?" He says it calmly. There's no point in getting angry with your only ally, no point at all.

"We're out of food again. We've got to go to the flood zone." His manner is insultingly patronizing. There is nothing that annoys Izaya more than being talked down to, treated like an infant or a mental patient, and Shizuo knows it.

Izaya is, naturally, annoyed, but his face doesn't flicker. In a way, it's nice to know their old battles are continuing.

"Ah, yes. Well. Lead the way." He stands, grabbing his rucksack from the floor, and slinging it over his shoulder. It sags loosely along his back- everything he owns in the world is in that bag, but since the world ended, that's been next to nothing.

Shizuo has a stick in his hand- it looks like a worn-down stop sign pole. He opens the door of the building they've been hiding in, and steps out onto their raft.

They've been making it for months now, lashing together scraps of anything that can float. PVC pipe makes up half the raft, oddly enough; it's a lot easier to find, in a place like this, than driftwood would be. For now, he sits on the raft, steadying it as much as he can manage, and Shizuo pulls it.

It's mid-morning, and Ikebukuro is a wreck. The stark, bright light doesn't help matters. Everything's in ruins, and every so often, the earth trembles, like the spasms of an epileptic fit. The aliens have ripped chunks off of the planet for so long, tearing off the surface like the skin of an orange, that things have gotten less and less stable.

_It's a dying land_, Izaya thinks, and supresses a shudder.

The vast sea stretches out before them, separated only by a railway line. The second and third floors of buildings rise like tombstones above the murky gray water. The shreds of a flag, advertising something-or-the-other, float by. Izaya considers trying to grab it, but decides against it.

Shizuo stops at a window. They'd found a store of cans there earlier. They'd been tasty food, too, things like pineapple, a nice change from tasteless vegetables and dry tuna. It'd be as good of a place to begin as any.

The morning's real work begins, digging through layers of bloated wood and crumbled concrete, looking for any trace of food. Shizu-chan is much better at this than he is, though he would never care to admit it.

A few hours later, they haven't found anything. Shizu confers with him, and they decide to head north, towards an apartment complex that hasn't sank too far, yet.

This place strikes him as familiar. It's hard to tell where anything is anymore... the water covers everything like a shroud, making familiar places strange. But he knows, with the certainty of the mad, that he has been here before, and he idly wonders where it is that they are.

Something floating in the water catches his eye, and he fishes it out. His eyes widen, and a little cry escapes from his lips.

"What'd you find?" Shizu-chan looks up.

"It's nothing." His fingers close over it. There's no point in showing it off. He'd had a moment of weakness and now, as usual, he was ashamed of it.

"Let me see." Shizuo wades over to him, and wrenches his fingers open. Izaya winces- damn, he's strong- and closes his eyes. This is the first time he has not wanted to see the look on his face.

"A chess piece? _That's_ what you were having a fit over?" Shizu-chan laughs- that harsh, barking, tense laugh- and drops it, into the water. He hears the plop as it sinks.

It wasn't any chess piece, though later, he will tell himself that it could have been. It was one of his pieces, the ones he used to play the game.

The long scorch marks along the side, from when he set the board on fire; the broken top, held on with duct tape, from ditto incident; the strangely glossy, white sheen of it...

It hadn't been just any piece, either, it had been a white rook. The one he'd used to represent Shizuo. Lifetimes ago, it seemed.

He fishes it back out of the water, and holds it up for a second, looking at it. Water streams from it, tricking down his hands like blood from an open wound. Then his fingers curl around it, and it vanishes into his pocket.

"You're weird, flea," Shizuo says, in half-mocking tones.

"Let's go somewhere else." Izaya sits on the raft, looking at the wreckage, and realizes that this could very well be his old apartment building. Perhaps that's why it felt so familiar...

He doesn't want to stay here, it sets his skin crawling and his spine shivering. He'd hate to find something too close to home. He'd hate to find a corpse he recognizes.

"There's too many ghosts here."

_This is the dead land_  
_This is cactus land_  
_Here the stone images_  
_Are raised, here they receive_  
_The supplication of a dead man's hand_  
_Under the twinkle of a fading star._


	4. 4: In Death's Other Kingdom,Waking Alone

Five months after they found each other, Shizuo sleeps.

Everyone looks different when they sleep, like a different person from their waking self. He knows this; he's often wondered what his own face looks like in sleep. Shizuo's looks softer, gentler.

Some of the bodyguard and the bartender is washed away, some of the child he must have been once remains. His mouth's slightly open; his whole body's relaxed. That, and he snores like a freight train. It's loud and annoying and, well, there. Just like Shizuo.

Izaya finds it hard to sleep at the best of times, and, as usual, sits beside him, watching him. He tries not to make any sudden movements. After all, Shizuo's a light sleeper, and he does not like being woken up.

He's so near. So near, so soft, so _vulnerable_...

Izaya blinks. He hadn't realized how much trust it must take for Shizuo to sleep like this, in the presence of his worst enemy, who's awake and armed. Well, he had, but it hadn't... It hadn't ever sunk in.

He watches him, biting his lower lip, and thinks. There's a lot on his mind right now, and, well, he has to come to terms with some of it.

It's said there's a very fine line between love and hatred. He'd always, always said he'd hated Shizu-chan. And for the longest time, he had. He had hated him in a cool, platonic kind of way, the way you hated a force of nature you couldn't avoid and couldn't control.

But lately, he'd started to notice things about Shizuo that weren't his monstrous strength or his terrible temper. Things like... the way he desperately kept an eye out for his little brother, even after Izaya had given up hope of ever seeing his sisters again. The way he was careful around everything, for fear of breaking it, or hurting someone. The little kindnesses he'd gladly do, even for someone he hated. Shizuo had a warm heart, a heart that could love too much. And he was a gentle giant... not a monster at all.

It made Izaya feel... was it guilt? He'd never felt guilt, simply because he'd never regretted anything he'd done before. He could define the word, he could perform quite a convincing approximation of it. But it was only now he was realizing what it actually meant.

He was in love- he, Izaya Orihara, in love- with Shizuo Heiwajima, the man he'd hated more than anyone else in the world, and he felt sorry for what he'd done.

Shizuo murmurs something in his sleep. It sounds a bit like his brother's name, and Izaya frowns.

He reaches out and slowly, slowly as night falling, touches Shizuo's hand.

Shizuo stirs, but doesn't wake. Izaya takes his hand, and lies down beside him, just watching him breathe and listening to him snore. It's almost relaxing, in a way. He could get used to this, easy...

He realizes he's dozing, and lets his eyes close. Shizuo's warm bulk makes a soft pillow. Slowly, he drifts off to sleep, as happily as a child in its mother's arms.

When he wakes, he knows something's wrong right away. The air hangs heavy, the light is a scorched shade of yellow, and Shizuo is nowhere to be found. His side, where he'd pressed against him, feels cold.

He scrambles to his feet.

"Shizuo!" he calls. His voice echoes in the stillness.

There's no response, and around him, the shrill horns of sirens begin to wail, making his ears ache.

He's only heard that sound once, a long time ago. He doesn't know how the sirens are working after all the abuse they've recieved, but he knows what that sound means. A tsunami's coming.

He grabs his jacket and runs outside.

_Is it like this_  
_In death's other kingdom_  
_Waking alone_  
_At the hour when we are_  
_Trembling with tenderness_  
_Lips that would kiss_  
_Form prayers to broken stone._


	5. 5: This Beach of the Tumid River

"Izaya-kun!"

He finally finds Shizuo on the path up, away from the flood zone. He's picking his way up, through the rubble, towards the tallest building left- an apartment complex five stories high, on top of a hill.

Shizuo gives him a look that's the equal of a hug, and then a look that's the equal of a smack.

"Where were you?" he says. "I was starting to think you'd drowned or something-"

"I don't die that easy." Izaya grins. "You okay?"

"Yes." Shizuo frowns and keeps walking at that same, quick, steady pace. Izaya's hard-pressed to keep up.

He enters the building, and begins climbing the stairs, as high as they'll go. Izaya sees no rhyme or reason to this endless climb. He can see the wave coming from here, through the narrow windows of the staircase, and it's monstrous, easily enough to engulf the building. The most terrifying part is: It's easily a mile out. By the time it hits land, the force will be enough to rip them limb from limb.  
If they're going to die anyway, there's no point in waiting for it to happen.

But Shizuo seems to have some sort of idea, and perhaps, just perhaps, it'll be enough.

At the top of the stairs, Shizuo forces open the hatch in the roof. For the first time, Izaya is thankful for his maniacal strength.

He climbs through and then offers Izaya a hand.

Izaya gladly takes it, and Shizuo pulls him up.

They're on the roof of the building now, a concrete island in the midst of the waste that is Tokyo. Izaya fancies he can see half the world from here. From the sky, everything looks a little more familiar. He thinks he can see his old apartment building and his old high school, though he stops this little game when he catches sight of the wave. It's big enough to cover them, easily, and moving wickedly fast.

"...Shizuo... I'm sorry." It's the only thing he'd want to say now, well, one of the two.

As he predicted, Shizuo blinks, surprised. Then his face molds itself into a sad, half-crooked ghost of his old grin.

"Don't be. You're not that heavy."

Izaya's not entirely sure whether that was a joke. He just frowns, and hugs his legs, looking out at the sea.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Shizuo says, with the magnanimity of the doomed.

After that, they don't speak. Why would they, Izaya thinks. There's no point. They're both going to die, and they're not going anywhere after. Just into the nothingness that he'd always feared.

Though, it's a little easier with Shizuo there.

_Goddammit_... He's thinking oddly again. Love certainly made you stupid, didn't it. If he had any more time, he would have made a little quip about it, but it was hard to mock the world with death hanging over your shoulder.

He shivers, and slides closer to the edge of the roof, face as pale as bone.

_In this last of meeting places_  
_We grope together_  
_And avoid speech_  
_Gathered on this beach of the tumid river_


	6. 6: This Is The Way The World Ends

He waits until the wave is seconds away to say it.

"Shizuo?"

"Yeah?" Shizuo had lit a cigarette- damn, Izaya wishes for half his unflappability right now- and when he turns his head, the smoke hits Izaya's face, setting him coughing.

"I lo-"

The wave hits without warning, much faster than he'd thought it would, slamming into Izaya like a bus sent the wrong way. It knocks him off the roof and into the maelstrom below. He gasps for breath, but only water fills his lungs.

He struggles to reach the surface, kicking with all his might. Black water, like the void of death itself, surrounds him, peppered with nails and shards of wood and concrete, rushing away in every direction.

His head finally breaks the surface, and he gasps for breath. Water engulfs him again, before he can even open his eyes.

He flails against the water, making the best fight of it that he can. Even if this is going to be the enemy that will take his life, he's not going to go down without a fight.

As if to keep him from fighting, an aftershock of the big wave knocks him back, sending him plunging down, down, into darkness. He thinks he sees Shizuo, but when he blinks, it's obvious he was never there. Now even his own mind is playing tricks on him.

His head breaks the surface for a third time, and he gasps, desperately, for air. It fills his lungs, sweet as life itself. He sucks it in greedily.

Another wave smacks him in the face, replacing the air with water. He feels himself slipping away, and his body is weak, he can't hold on. He slips down, into the darkness, unable to cling to life, even feebly.

_This is the way the world ends _  
_This is the way the world ends _  
_This is the way the world ends _  
_Not with a bang but a whimper._

The darkness engulfs his mind as well as his body. He's gone.


End file.
